Grapes & Other Stories
by ArmedWithAPen
Summary: Alternately, just another collection of moments between our two favorite death gods; most sweet, some sour, all guaranteed Gravepainters. Update: Real Life. Sleeping had never been a problem for the Lord of the Land of the Forgotten. That is, until the neighboring kingdom moved in upstairs.
1. Grapes

A/N: "_& Other Stories" tacked on at the end there in the eventuality that more one-shots join this one. I have "Chess" in the works as we speak. _

_Inspired by the scene in the movie where Xibalba is clearly enjoying himself at La Muerte's table—in particular, the way he goes to town on that bunch of grapes. Yum, grapes. This fantastic movie belongs to Jorge Gutierrez and Guillermo del Toro, may the movie-gods forever bless their souls; also, the incredible artists who worked on this film, including the wonderfully talented Kate del Castillo and Ron Perlman whose voices I imagined while writing this scene. Soundtrack is "Besame Mucho" by Diana Krall. _

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><p><strong>Grapes<strong>

La Muerte was fuming.

Which, she realized with the vaguest sense of shock, was an emotion that she had not experienced in a long, long time. Centuries, in fact. Fuming, which she had once so perfected as to have practically made it an art form, now felt rusty on her face.

Not to say that she hadn't been on the receiving end of a healthy dose of irritation lately. Similarly, annoyed, exasperated, aggravated, and even—on one very unique occasion involving the always-rambunctious Beiza family, a yak, and a toothbrush—cheesed off.

But fuming, as she had just recently discovered, had always been reserved for one and _only_ one being: the being that now sat across from her, contentedly lost in the sumptuous feast characteristic of her realm and therefore ever-present on her table.

She clutched the generous, gold-rimmed goblet in her hand with such ferocity that she was in danger of permanently damaging the stem's carved _calacas_.

Xibalba was, of course, oblivious, all of his present attention being absorbed by the steaming, savory slab of pork haunch on the gilded plate before him. As La Muerte watched, he attacked it ravenously with his fork and knife, reducing it to bone in mere minutes before helping himself to a substantial slice of dark bread—smeared with cheese so white it appeared to glow—and a fresh glass of wine. He laughed in delight as the pitcher of wine refilled itself to the brim, and he drained his glass and poured more just to watch the violet liquid well up again.

"There is nothing like this in the Land of the Forgotten," he stated unnecessarily, plucking the pitcher from the table and examining its bottom as though to check for a valve or hose. La Muerte barely resisted the urge to scoff. He knew she was perfectly well aware of what lay and did not lay in the barren wasteland of his kingdom. In their most recent adventure, he'd done his very best to relegate her to its endless, ashy plains for all eternity. She bristled and snapped the skull off the tallest skeleton on her goblet. It bounced across the tiled floor with small, pained pings, rolling past the hat stand where Xibalba's coiled, two-headed snake staff eyed it warily.

The goddess ignored the snake and the skull. "More bread?" she offered her husband as casually as she could manage.

"Please."

With a wave of La Muerte's sugar-spun hand, a loaf of _pan de muerto_ floated from her end of the table to his, replacing its recently devoured brethren beside Xibalba's plate. He began to cut another slice, but was distracted halfway through by the lavish bowl of fruit to his left, which he slid closer within reach for ease of access. Barely resisting the urge to roll her eyes, La Muerte delicately sipped her wine.

"Certainly, there are feasts down there," her husband continued between mouthfuls of peach. "A table overflowing with food in the palace, all the wine you can drink. But it isn't the same. Everything tastes like ash and dust. And even when you're certain you can't eat another bite, you're still left feeling unsatisfied."

"How generous of you, that you would sacrifice so much sumptuousness for the sake of your wife," she said saccharinely, using her fork to chase a lonely pea across her plate. _Switch realms with me. I hate it down there. _She speared the hapless vegetable mercilessly.

For as much good as it did her, she might have been talking to a statue. Briskly finishing off the peach, Xibalba selected an apple from the bowl and idly rubbed it clean with his cloth napkin, carrying on as though no one had said a word. "Not like here. Here, everything is delicious. If I never have to leave this table again, it'll be too soon. I have centuries of dining to make up for, and I'm not letting a single second go to waste. Pass the _picante_, my sweet, if you please."

But La Muerte did not, _pass the picante, my sweet. _In fact, she didn't pass anything. She didn't say a word. She merely stared at her husband with the fire of a thousand suns blazing in her eyes until he finally looked up from his plate, casual confusion written across every angle of his sharp features.

It had been a very, very, _very _long time. But the Lord of the Underworld could still recognize his wife's fuming when he saw it. He narrowed his eyes, dropped his fork to his plate, and sat back in his chair, arms crossed, wings splayed like some sort of monstrous crow. "What? What is it now?"

She shot him a vicious glare that would have set lesser spirits aflame. "You really think it's that easy, don't you?"

He cocked an eyebrow. La Muerte seethed, elucidating further:

"Ask my forgiveness just once, _just once, Xibalba, _after everything you've done, and just assume that everything is back to normal? That we can sit here, making conversation over dinner like we did all those years ago? You lost," she reminded him with no small amount of relish.

The candles on his shoulders brightened in a very sinister fashion, and he glowered, squeezing the green apple in his fist so tightly that it made a protesting little squeak against his leather gloves.

"This is not one of the mortals' fairytales, Xibalba," she hissed. "A kiss under the moonlight does not in fact make centuries of heartache simply disappear." _Though it certainly does help, _she admitted, fighting the light blush rising to her cheeks at the memory. The shocked expression on his face, the way he glowed a little greener under her hands, the way his wings had popped out in surprise and delight when she'd pressed her own smile to his, the way his gloves had felt on her waist and in her hair after so many long years. "You _lost._"

Those words had been building inside of her since the moment Manolo and María's wedding party had ended and the gods had returned to their realms. And now that those words had been spoken, La Muerte found that she felt equal parts incredibly relieved and a trifle shocked at her own actions. Though she was definitely no stranger to wearing her sugar-coated heart on her sleeve, she had most assuredly not intended to launch into this decidedly tense topic all at once. They had centuries of unspoken words between them, and all eternity to say them and resolve their differences, not smash them out onto the banquet table all at once. But, as she stared at him over the cornucopia centerpiece, refusing to even blink lest he seize the opportunity to devour her, it was too late to turn back now.

Which wasn't exactly true. There were spells that could be done. But meddling with something as finicky as time always involved a ridiculous amount of extra paperwork, and rarely did the desired outcome of said meddling ever come to fruition.

And anyway, despite its arguably ungraceful delivery, La Muerte felt as though saying those words had lifted an enormous weight from her chest. Across the table, her husband looked less pleased.

In fact, he looked positively murderous. The apple in his fist burst into green flames.

Outwardly, La Muerte made sure to maintain her collected façade, but inside it was all she could do to keep from smirking. In all the goddess's otherwise immaculate repertoire, there were but three weaknesses to speak of: the first was her husband. The second was a good gamble. And the third was, without a doubt, goading said husband into a fiery fury to rival the flames of Hades. She couldn't help it; he was so cute when he was angry. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep the smile from her face.

There was a brief, heavy silence in which Xibalba casually shook the apple ashes from his glove and La Muerte eyed him blithely over her wine goblet. Neither moved nor spoke. They simply stared at each other across the table, appraising each other, sizing each other up as though to do battle.

Which wasn't exactly an unusual situation for them. La Muerte could remember quite a few times in their married lives when they'd maintained this exact position for what might have been hours. She weakened, allowing a brief, fond smile to slip across her features. _Maybe it's more like old times than I thought. _

That smile was quickly wiped from her face when her husband's low, condescending chuckle began to rise from his chest and spill out into the enormous dining room, playing in the stone rafters above.

She narrowed her golden eyes, instantly suspicious. She would recognize that chuckle anywhere. That was his patented, _I know something you don't_ chuckle.

Xibalba, still grinning his special sharp-toothed grin as though at an incredibly funny joke, merely plucked a bunch of grapes from the bowl. He liberated one from its stem, examined it, still chuckling, before popping the little fruit into his mouth and chewing with obvious relish.

"_Lost. _Now, that's adorable, my love, it really is."

La Muerte blinked, her mind beginning to race. "I fail to see the humor in this," she said, frowning, swirling the wine in her cup. "Unless something really _has_ changed in that twisted heart of yours during your banishment to the ash pits of the underworld, I distinctly recall you taking the news that you'd lost a wager a little less humbly, Xibalba."

Another grape, and when her husband indolently wiped a stray drop of juice from his lips, La Muerte suddenly found it very difficult to remember what exactly they had been talking about. Why worry about idle conversation when there were so many more pressing thoughts to consider, like what exactly Xibalba's mouth might taste like when laced with wine and grape juice? Her heart's impeccable beat faltered and she unconsciously licked her lips, feeling the candle flames on the hem of her dress brighten cheekily. Had Xibalba been paying attention to his wife's reaction instead of the stray spot of sauce that had somehow found its way onto his cloak, this conversation probably wouldn't have continued. But somehow, most likely through the intervention of some god of feminine pride, La Muerte managed to reclaim a hold of her racing emotions, calm her pulse, and catch his next words.

"I suppose I did lose our little wager," he shrugged nonchalantly, swirling his wine. But the red skulls of his eyes met hers with a decidedly wicked smirk on their fleshless faces as he finished, "_Technically_."

La Muerte raised one impeccable eyebrow. "_Technically_," she echoed.

He placed his goblet next to the fruit bowl, straightened in his chair, and steepled his long, gloved fingers before him, appearing very much like a professor preparing to explain a new concept to a student. The bunch of grapes still dangled lazily from one of his hands. For some reason she couldn't fully comprehend, La Muerte found it very distracting. Her mouth watered, and she swiftly downed her wine, helping herself to another full glass.

"Let's look at it from a new perspective, _mi amor_," the Lord of the Underworld explained slowly. "You see, I had two goals in making that bet with you, the first and foremost being, of course, to have you back in my immortal life."

His wife froze, mid-pour, staring at him.

He smiled back guiltily, his eyes liquid pools of some exotic sort of green, molten lava. "Because Ancients help me, La Muerte, I do love you so."

The sound of liquid meeting cloth alerted her to the fact that her cup had overflowed and was creating rather an impressive purple stain on her dress. Cursing lightly, she replaced the pitcher on the table and scrubbed furiously at the spot with her magic even as her chest flushed with pride. Xibalba had never been one much for verbal affection before their split, after which point he took it upon himself to remind her as often as possible of his (quite literally) undying affection in hopes of regaining her attention. And while it had obviously not worked, she had enjoyed every minute of it. Hearing him admit such a thing again was a definite pleasure in her immortal life that she would not give up for anything.

Wisely choosing to ignore her blunder, but obviously recognizing it with a poorly hidden smirk, Xibabla continued. "The second goal was to, if possible, reign once more in the Land of the Remembered," he said, plucking yet another grape from its stem and chewing lazily. "Now, even if my particular method of attaining both those goals didn't quite work out the way that I'd planned—"

"You mean, at all," La Muerte smirked indulgently. Xibalba tensed.

"_Planned_," he repeated stubbornly, "I would like for you to take a look at where I am sitting at this moment."

Mid-scrub, the Queen of the Underworld paused, realization washing over her like a wave. Despite her best efforts to remain impassive, she felt her eyes widen. _Why, that sneaky, good-for-nothing, conniving, mischievous old goat…_

Smirking in a very smug way while watching the comprehension dawn on his wife's features, Xibalba settled back in his chair, his wings to either side of him like a great pair of black feathered curtains. He explained unnecessarily, "I'm sitting here, in the Land of the Remembered _where I wanted to be_, ensured of having a hand in its rule because I've been recently reconciled to its beautiful and incredible queen, whom I am most humbled to call _my wife_."

He popped another grape into his mouth. "I think, all in all, it worked out pretty well for me. Wouldn't you agree, _mi amor_?"

She could only stare at him, open-mouthed and incredulous.

He grinned.

Oh, he was full of it. So very full of it. How dare he try to pass off what could only be seen as her own good will—and inability to send him packing because, despite herself, she loved him irreversibly—as a victory? She seethed.

Xibalba, for his own part, was very satisfied watching the expressions play across his wife's face. He treated himself to another delicious grape, holding it whole in his mouth as he demurred, "But if it makes you feel any better, sweet, we can always tell the other gods that _you _were the one who won our little—"

In a puff of marigolds, La Muerte appeared in front of him, her face barely inches from his, and she slammed one small yet deceptively powerful sugar-spun palm into the wooden back of his chair right beside his head. Her other hand clasped the opposite arm of his chair in an iron grip, effectively trapping him beneath her as she hovered above, eyes burning low, lips smiling, hair surrounding him with the combined heady scent of marigolds and sugar in such a way that Xibalba's heart suddenly seemed to lose all sense of rhythm, turning clumsy cartwheels in his chest. He stared, wide-eyed, mouth open, wings trembling at attention.

"—wager," he finished weakly, in a voice that was much higher pitched than the one he'd been using just moments ago. La Muerte smirked.

"You'd do that," she whispered quietly, lowering her face towards his, "for me, _Balbi?_"

The candles on the god's pauldrons went out for the briefest of moments, as though he'd fleetingly forgotten to keep them burning, before flaming again more brightly than before, and she could count the painted dots that ran in a long stripe down the center of his face. She smiled, removed the hand from the side of his head, and walked two, delicate sugar fingers up his armored chest, sliding her palm up his glowing green neck and feeling the energy blazing underneath her touch. She stopped at his beard, playing with it languidly and savoring the way he trembled beneath her fingers, his gloved hands clenching and unclenching sporadically at his sides. One fist still clutched the bunch of grapes. La Muerte could hear her own heart beating in her ears and secretly wondered if he could hear it, too. The crystals in her skin caught his candlelight and reflected it into their faces, creating sparkling, multicolored patterns that hung between them like stars.

He valiantly tried to speak, but the only noises that emerged from his throat were incomprehensible stammers. She raised her eyebrows with a smile, leaning close enough to feel his hot breath, uneven and ragged, ghost across her lips.

"Speechless, _mi corazón?" _she teased lightly, tracing his mouth with the very tip of her finger. "That's a first."

His mouth was open, dumbstruck, and between his lips, La Muerte could barely make out the dark silhouette of a grape, still intact. _Those infernal grapes! _A sudden, wicked idea blossoming in her mind, she smiled, eyes never leaving his mouth, and without further ado she slid deftly into his lap and closed the distance between their lips.

Instantly, a smile lit her features; the kiss tasted distinctly of grape juice.

Xibalba gasped as though stabbed, and his wings snapped out and upward, stretching as far as physically possible to the heavens as if in silent praise. Beaming in a most satisfied manner, La Muerte moved closer, sliding her arms up and around her husband's neck, feeling his beard tickle the skin of her chest. They were joined at the seams, bodies flush against one another. She could feel him breathing, humming with magic, his gloves sliding up her back to nestle in her hair and cup her face. As harsh and cruel as he might seem, Xibalba was not all sharp angles and snow, and La Muerte knew her husband's two greatest weaknesses: his wife, and a good kiss.

But she was on a mission. Barely resisting the urge to smirk devilishly and therefore spoil her whole plan, she daintily parted her lips against his and, as softly as she could manage, touched his bottom lip with her tongue. He caught his breath in surprise, mouth opening automatically, and La Muerte seized her chance, sinfully deepening the kiss, rising against him and tilting her head for better access.

Xibalba was helpless and, as usual, he melted in her arms. Releasing a low, baritone sigh from the very depths of his chest, wings falling limp at his sides, candles blazing like stars, he reciprocated, clutching his wife as closely to him as was physically possible, and when that wasn't close enough, deciding that physics was horribly overrated.

_Gods above and below…! _La Muerte could not remember the last time she had kissed her husband like this, all raging warmth and vitality, with a complete opera being performed in her head that rose and fell with the patterns of his hands on her skin. She loved him, she did. She couldn't help herself. There was something about him that demanded her constant attention and affection, just like there was something inside _her_ that was simply unable to resist. She nimbly nipped his lower lip, and he made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a groan that did wonderful things to La Muerte's temperature and pulse. She wondered if it was possible for a sugar skull to melt.

No! Focus. You have a duty! Show him whose boss. There'll be time enough for this amazing, delicious, glorious activity later.

Barely managing to snap back into reality, La Muerte recovered admirably and, with one last, swift, deep kiss that left Xibalba delightfully breathless, she released him, pulling back slowly to sit on his lap, eyes sparkling, lips smiling and swollen, her hands resting on his armored chest.

He gasped for air, dumbstruck, stunned, and decidedly dazed, barely managing to remain upright in his chair. "Wh-Wha. What w-was—"

She allowed herself to completely enjoy the expression on his face for a few moments, searing it into her mind for wonderful posterity's sake. No matter the day or the situation, almost any foul mood could be cured by simply recalling an image of her husband, thoroughly kissed and practically a puddle, staring up at her with blatant adoration in his eyes. She smiled lovingly.

And then she grinned, baring the small, round, purple fruit that she held gingerly between her teeth.

His eyes widened. She had stolen his grape.

La Muerte laughed, shaking her head, and chewing, relishing with abandon the burst of sweetness in her mouth that would, from this point forward, remind her so much of her husband's kiss. She swallowed, licked her lips in a most satisfied fashion, and smirked when he stiffened, eyes watching her tongue as though hypnotized.

Mission thus accomplished, she indulged herself with one last kiss of her husband's mouth. He liquefied in her hands. "Or could it be that _I _got what _I _wanted, _Balbi_?" she asked, grinning when she pulled away, leaving him once more gazing up at her with the goofiest of smiles and a light green flush darting across his cheeks. "And while you're thinking about that, I'm going to go change into my nightgown. The hour is late, and I would personally like to sleep well for a change tonight."

With one last playful tug of his white beard, La Muerte rose from his lap, stretched languorously, and began to leave the hall, swaying her hips a little more than was perhaps strictly necessary. She couldn't help it. Goading her husband was one of her favorite pastimes. She cast him a coy glance over her shoulder, catching him sitting gobsmacked as though paralyzed with his eyes glued to her hips.

"Coming?" she asked casually.

In the time it took him to pick his jaw back up off the floor, Xibalba decided that thinking about who exactly won their wager could wait. With his beautiful, incredible, irresistible wife around, there were so many better ways to spend one's time than thinking. He stood, almost upending the banquet table in his haste, and charged after her into the corridor, leaving the bunch of grapes forgotten on his plate.

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><p>AN: _Saw the movie for a second time last night, and loved it even more than the first time. I didn't think that was possible. As always, review! __  
><em>


	2. Chess

A/N:_ Still not completely satisfied with this, but I wanted to upload it before I completely lost my ganas._

_I wanted to have this uploaded, like, a week ago, but then a nasty little thing called Real Life reminded me it still existed, and so…nothing belongs to me, not even the chessboard (even though one can always hope, I guess). Everything belongs to El Rey del Toro and his prodigy Prince Gutierrez, may they live long and prosper; also, the various, inordinately talented artists who lent this movie their magic, including the magnificent Mr. Perlman and Sra de Castillo, whose voices I borrowed for this little snippet. Soundtrack: "Dímelo" – Marc Anthony._

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><p><strong>Chess<strong>

When they weren't otherwise engaged watching over their respective realms, gambling with the lives of mortals, or driving each other generally crazy, La Muerte and Xibalba played chess.

All things considered, it was an admittedly unusual game for two ancient gods of death to become so enamored with: it had originated nowhere near the New World that Xibalba and La Muerte called home, and compared to them it was relatively young. Only when the ever-conquering Europeans had sailed the seas to the shores of the Americas, bringing the game with them—and thus to La Muerte and Xibalba—had they even been introduced to chess. However, in little time, it had made short work of both of them; they were instantly and irreversibly intrigued.

Understandably so. The game was a fascinating mix of deception, strategy, and wits, all things Xibalba and La Muerte possessed in abundance and never missed an opportunity to compare in (mostly friendly) competition. Following their estrangement all those centuries ago, La Muerte had found she missed many things about her incorrigible, indescribable, unforgettable husband, but their chess matches had definitely been near the top of the list.

Naturally, shortly after their reconciliation, the games had begun anew. She would never admit it aloud to anyone, but La Muerte had never been so happy to summon anything in all her immortal life more than the beautiful mahogany chessboard she'd made appear in a whirl of marigold petals at Xibalba's eager suggestion.

But of course, no matter how many years might have passed between their last chess match and this one, her husband's habits had not changed. He was still an insufferable cheat.

She eyed him now as he sat across from her, glaring pensively at the jade pieces that intermingled with her amethyst ones. The clawed, gloved fingers wrapped around his snake staff clenched and unclenched sporadically, and his wings twitched in poorly-disguised irritation. La Muerte barely managed to conceal a smug grin.

"You know, there is a version that mortals play where their moves are limited to only two minutes," she said casually. Xibabla had been staring at the board for almost five.

"I'm. Thinking," he snarled in response, absently twirling his mustache as the red skulls of his eyes darted first to one piece, then another. La Muerte couldn't blame him for his frustration. She had maneuvered him flawlessly into an irrecoverable position; two more moves and his king—a small jade Quetzalcoatl—would be hers. She steepled her sugar-spun fingers and watched him with no small amount of satisfaction. No matter how many years had gone by, she was still the better player.

Sensing her eyes on him, Xibalba glanced up from the board. He smiled, shook his head, and reclined backwards in his high stone chair. The green flames, perpetually burning in the hearth of his palace, danced lazily in his eyes and cast deep shadows on his face.

"Your strategic prowess never ceases to amaze, my dear," he intoned, deep and admiring, and despite the little, casual smile she threw his way, she could feel the blush appear on her cheeks. "Something tells me I've already lost."

La Muerte shrugged noncommittally. "Maybe, maybe not. What if I make a mistake? Make the wrong move? Miscalculate completely?"

Xibalba chuckled darkly. "If our previous games are anything to go on, I highly doubt that's the case." He smiled at her over the chess pieces, a smile she returned with a generous amount of smugness. "But I suppose I can indulge you just this once, _mi amor_, and give you the incomparable satisfaction of beating me soundly and thoroughly. My move, I believe?"

He reached to the farthest edge of the board to move his last knight, a jade Tonatiuh inlaid with gold and brandishing a spear. But as he did, one of his fingers accidentally brushed an amethyst Ehecatl, her bishop, already made top-heavy by the elaborate crown of branches on his head. He clattered to the stone floor.

"I'm sorry, my dear, my most sincere apologies." He stooped to retrieve the piece, but La Muerte stopped him.

"I'll get it. It's on my side of the board." She slipped from her chair and knelt, trying to find the little bishop against the obsidian tile of Xibalba's chambers. Not an easy feat when the only light came from the flickering green flames of the fireplace across the room. When she had finally collected the piece from where he'd rolled under the furthest point of her chair, a good minute had already elapsed.

"Sorry, _mi amor_," she apologized, replacing Ehacatl on the board. "You should consider investing in some brighter lighting."

"I prefer it dim," he said, giving her a wicked smile that caused her dulce-de-leche heart to skip a few beats in her chest. "It's more romantic."

She flushed a brilliant red, and despite the dimness of his rooms, she knew that he could see it in the dark. Her suspicions were only confirmed when his smile widened into something vaguely predatory, glowing like a verdant crescent moon, and La Muerte cleared her throat. "My turn, I think."

But when she returned her attention to the board, preparing to move her rook—a Tenochtitlan pyramid—into position, she stopped short, blinked, and stared. The board looked different somehow. As though some pieces had been moved from their original positions. She glared suspiciously at XIblaba who seemed blissfully unaware that anything was amiss. He was examining a missing scale on his snake staff with rapt attention. La Muerte decided that she must be imagining things. Reevaluating her strategy, she determined that she was still assured of victory, even though it might take a few moves more. She slid a pawn, a purple Nanahuatl, into place.

"Your move."

Xibalba tapped his chin, examining the board, before rising in his chair to move a bishop on her side of the playing space. "I'm beginning to think I've married myself to an unapologetic sadist," he smirked. "Continuing to demand moves of me when she knows I've already—oh, nine hells!"

Attempting to reseat himself comfortably, one of his wings had shot out, jarring the table and upending the cups of wine by their places. Miniature Aztec gods clattered to the floor like crystalline raindrops.

"You'd think, after an eternity with those things," La Muerte teased lightly, barely managing to avoid the splash zone, "you'd have better control of them."

Xibalba was less than amused. The wine had managed to make contact with a large section of his black condor's feathers, and was dripping onto the tile. "I'd thank you to keep your remarks to yourself, _mi corazón_, and help me gather these pieces."

Once more, La Muerte ducked behind her chair, finding the escaped game pieces in short order except one stubborn pawn who had made it all the way to the bookshelf before she was able to snatch him up. Returning triumphantly with her spoils, La Muerte couldn't help the proud smirk on her white face.

"For as much good as it does you, Balbi, all these little accidents just keep delaying the inevi…"

She trailed off, frowning. She couldn't quite place it, but again she felt like the board was wrong. Like the pieces had switched places. Xibalba returned from the next room bearing two fresh goblets of wine, caught his wife's expression, and raised his snowy eyebrows. "Something wrong, my love?"

"The board is different."

Xibalba placed the wine on the table, eyed the pieces, and said, "It looks the same to me, my dear. Surely you're imagining things." He smirked. "Perhaps losing a bit of your indelible confidence?"

She scoffed. "You wish. Sit down, my love, and prepare to be throttled. We're finishing this game."

But as the gods played on, La Muerte's infallible moves were again and again stymied; every piece that had at one point guaranteed her absolute victory was now positively useless. She could only watch helplessly as move after move Xibalba gained control of the board.

"Such a shame," he fairly crowed as he removed yet another amethyst Nanahuatl to the sidelines. "And you were doing so well!"

Inside, La Muerte was seething. Outside, she was glowering at her husband with all the fury her golden eyes could muster. How could she have been so foolish? His sudden clumsiness? The mystery of the moving pieces? She gripped her fallen queen, an amethyst Tezcatlipoca jaguar, so hard she wouldn't have been surprised if the little cat suddenly yowled in pain.

"You cheated_,_" she hissed.

Xibalba, having just finished surrounding her Quetzalcoatl with an impermeable wall of jade pieces, lifted a gloved hand to his chest, offence captured perfectly in his molten eyes. "You wound me, my heart!"

"You _cheated._"

He relaxed into his chair and grinned a slow, slimy, oily grin, tapping a long finger idly against the board and lapping up the expression on her face with obvious relish; La Muerte refused to drop her gaze, glaring into his eyes with such ferocity that the tips of his wings should have caught fire. Xibalba was nonplussed.

"Come, come, my dear, you could at least have the courtesy to lose gracefully," he smirked, draining his goblet in one quick swallow. He paused briefly to cast a casual eye across her pitiful assortment of pieces still in play, and confirmed his suspicions with one last, self-satisfied smile. "Checkmate, by the way."

Almost before she knew what she was doing, La Muerte shot to her feet, her red velvet sleeve unceremoniously swiping the board clean with all the speed of a striking rattlesnake. Crystal gods rained to the tile with tiny chiming noises, bouncing and skittering to all corners of the room and disappearing into the darkness. Just as suddenly, Xibalba matched her position, standing straight as a black stone pillar, his eyes murderous, his wings outstretched, his candles burning as brightly as the flames snapping in the fireplace. All of his previous mocking levity had evaporated like dew drops in a forest fire.

Once upon a time, when both of them had been younger, La Muerte might have been a little afraid of him in that moment when he wore that expression, when his eyes flashed that color. He held his purple snake staff erect at his side, his other hand clenched in a fist, his body turned at just the right angle that the fire cast shadows on it that looked for a moment like the ribs she knew lay beneath the armor; he looked almighty, powerful, godlike.

But something had changed from those younger years so long ago. Xibalba, the Lord of the Underworld, was hers. He belonged to her.

And to remind him of that one, undeniable fact, she lunged across the table, seized him by the collar, and dragged his lips to hers without so much as a moment's hesitation.

The noise Xibalba made in response was something between a breathless moan and a carnal growl, and the combination tugged La Muerte's heart clean out of rhythm into half-hearted trembles that rose in her throat like singing. He threw his staff to the ground (which it didn't like at all, and slithered sourly away into the dark) to liberate both hands which he then occupied with burying into her black, thick hair and pulling her as close as he could. She gave an appreciative sigh, wrapping both arms around his neck and deepening the kiss even as he plucked her from the ground and held her high, wings trembling, hands shaking.

_These _were the moments she had truly missed with her husband, not the chess matches. _These _were the moments that had been so painfully absent during their tedious, arduous years apart. _These _were the moments for which she lived year after year of her afterlife, and she had no intention of letting them go to waste ever again. She pulled him closer, tilted her head, and slid her fingers slowly down his neck.

And just like she knew he would, he began to liquefy under her fingers. _"Oh!" _he whispered, shivering.

But then, just as suddenly as he had begun, he stopped, replacing her on her feet and holding her at arm's length, laughing breathlessly. "Oh, no. No, not this time, _mi amor_, you can't always have your way by kissing me and expecting me to melt—"

She interrupted him with a finger on his lips and gave him the most wicked smirk she could muster. "Please, _Balbi. _You can have _your _cheating. Let me have _mine._" And as she silenced him with another kiss, melting is exactly what he did.

* * *

><p>AN: _Shout-out (calling out?) excentricAnthropologist here for their awesome reviews that I cannot respond to via PM. You're awesome. _


	3. Empanadas

A/N: _Well, MissEmmaLights, it isn't Real Life. :) But I hope you enjoy it nonetheless. excentricAnthropologist, I live for hawt endings. Live for them. I invest too much in these fics to not end on a hawt note. _

_Based on my own (many) frustrations with the culinary arts; thank goodness I like boxed macaroni and cheese. Everything belongs to the illustrious and brilliant Guillermo del Toro and El Tigre himself, Jorge Gutierrez, as well as the numerous artists whose insurmountable talents brought this film to life. Credit also to the incredible voice talents of Kate de Castillo and Ron Perlman without whom La Muerte and Xibalba would be simply incomplete. Soundtrack: "Limón y Sal" by Julieta Venegas._

* * *

><p>Empanadas<p>

"Honestly, how hard can it be?"

La Muerte was many things: Ruler of the Land of the Remembered, Queen of Souls, beloved patron of mortals and reigning Underworld Jiu-Jitsu Champion (for a running 142 years now, but who was counting?). She had faced down gods, demons, and, on one very memorable occasion, a rampant troop of pygmy marmosets wielding poisoned spears, all without batting a single impeccably-curled eyelash.

But as she stood, staring down the intimidating arrangement of stainless steel and cast iron on the carved wooden countertop of her palace kitchen, she was positively terrified.

"_¡Vengate, chica!" _She gave herself a mental (and physical) shake. "There's nothing to be afraid of." But the yellow apron tied around her waist felt like very insufficient armor in the presence of all the rather malicious-looking cookware. It glinted at her with a sort of evil smugness that she'd only ever seen in the eyes of her husband. When he was being particularly vicious. She shuddered.

"_Ay, Anciosos me ayuden. _Why ever did I agree to this infernal bet?"

But even as the words left her lips, she already knew the answer. She _always _agreed to his bets. It was one of her greatest weaknesses; he knew that, and never hesitated to use it against her. There were no problems that Xibalba couldn't solve by grinning, leering with his slick green mouth and whispering five little words in his wife's sugarcoated ear, words that made her toes curl and her attention pique:

"_How about a little wager?" _

It had been one such an irresistible whisper that had landed La Muerte in her current situation. She'd been arguing with her husband, of course—as it was admittedly one of their favorite hobbies—about which of them was the more powerful god, even though they both already knew that they were equally matched in every way possible, be it magic, martial or otherwise. Among several other reasons, being able to equal each other in such ways was probably what made them such a good pair in the first place. Neither could have stood to be either outmatched or underwhelmed by their partner.

But nevertheless, they were arguing about it and, as always, using said argument as an opportunity to show off their various skills (in efforts to impress each other, though both would rather be thrown headfirst into an active volcano before admitting that little tidbit).

Xibalba was the first to begin the contest. In an undeniably spectacular display of his magical powers, he called lightning from the sky, summoning a massive thunderstorm that seemed to rain fire and brimstone from the very heavens themselves. Nonplussed, La Muerte responded by calming the storm with a wave of her hand, clearing the clouds and revealing the Sun once more. Her husband retaliated quickly, waving his hands in a series of intricate movements, and making a blazing green fireball appear, flickering maliciously, in his black-gloved palm. La Muerte merely smiled and reached forward, lovingly folding Xibalba's hand between hers; instantly the fireball cooled to a sparkling red firework.

But then, seemingly struck with an ingenious idea, Xibalba laid aside his magical staff. He simply stooped, plucked some long-stemmed daisies from the field in which they were having their contest, and deftly knotted them into an elaborately woven necklace which he then secured around his wife's neck.

Touched despite herself by such tenderness, La Muerte shyly fingered one of the white flowers. "Oh, very impressive," she joked lightly, doing her best to chase the blush from her cheeks before he could notice and take the opportunity to declare victory.

Xibalba merely smirked, standing in front of her and straightening his creation until it lay flat against her collarbone. One of his long fingers idly traced the marigolds at her neckline. "Now, now, don't mock me. I made that _without_ the use of magic. Which is more than what I can say for _your_ abilities, _mi amor._"

Instantly, La Muerte stiffened. All the delightful little tingles caused by Xibalba's hands so close to her skin vanished like sparks in the night. "I can do things without magic," she said.

He eyed her doubtfully, a condescending smile on his black lips.

"I can!"

He scoffed, waving away those two indignant words like so many stray butterflies. "Don't be silly, my love, you've never gone a day in your afterlife without using some kind of magic. Can you even tie your own sandals? Or do you need some kind of spell for that?"

Now, _that _was completely unfair. Her sandals, a deathday gift from the Candle Maker, had been charmed specifically to tie themselves when she put them on in the mornings. To try and tie them herself had always seemed rude somehow, as though she was depriving them of their, ahem, _sole _occupations. But even if they had _not _been charmed, she would never have stooped to use magic for such a mundane task. She sniffed disapprovingly.

"Of course I don't, Xibalba, don't be ridiculous," she said. "I can do anything _you _can do without magic, and more. You underestimate the extent of my abilities."

His hands still lazily adjusting the daisy chain around her neck, Xibalba's crimson eyes looked his wife up and down with slow, laughing movements. When she refused to look away, making it a point to glare daggers right back at him, the insufferable smirk on his lips broadened into a wide, unabashed grin. As though she'd somehow managed to stumble her way right into his open-mawed, gaping trap after he'd been waiting for hours. But any suspicion that La Muerte might have felt at her husband's obvious glee was lost in her stubborn refusal to surrender and in the way he tipped his head to the side, grinning like some sort of mischievous bird. Or dragon. Definitely a dragon.

"Very well," he said smoothly in a voice richer than the darkest Aztec chocolate. Before La Muerte could say a word, his hands fell from her necklace to her waist, lit on the very crests of the hips beneath her dress and pulled her steadily forward until her daisies were being crushed against his armor. Despite herself her breath caught in her throat, and automatically her palms pressed flat against his cool steel chest. Beneath it she could feel the pure, unsullied magic humming through his veins, teasing and tantalizing the magic in_ hers_, and in response her heart began performing an impressive one-organ percussion routine inside her ribcage, a routine which she didn't doubt for a second that he could hear.

But if he did, he didn't show it. He smiled. She swallowed.

"How about a little wager?" he asked sinfully, his voice low, his hands tracing patterns of simultaneous fire and ice through her dress as they trekked from her hips to her shoulder blades. She curled her fists against his armor. "If _you _can perform any task that _I _set you without the use of magic, you win. If you _can't, _then _I _win. Deal?"

La Muerte was finding any sort of brain function exceedingly difficult with her husband's warmth so near and his hands so distracting. But she valiantly summoned the last of her wits to say in a voice that was much less breathless than how she was presently feeling, "W-Within reason, of course."

He inclined his head. "Of course."

"S-Stakes?"

"Hmm." Here he paused, mulling the question over and allowing his momentarily distracted fingers to rest against her lower back. She seized the peace gratefully, collecting her scattered thoughts which had heretofore been prancing around the inside of her head like drunken fairies in a meadow. "If _I _win," he finally said, "I get a year of Mortal-Meddling scott-free, no strings attached."

That was enough to sober her. She glared at him disapprovingly, placing her hands on her hips, but he only smirked and pulled her teasingly closer. Her knees weakened. "You don't have to play if you don't want to, _mi amor._"

She chuckled despite herself and tweaked his mustache. "Oh, you wish, _mi corazón. _I'm in. But if _I _win, I get to ask anything of you that I want, anything at all."

He cocked his head to the side, smiling. "Intriguing! Very well, my dear, we have an accord. By the Ancient Rules…" The emerald candles on his shoulders burning like wickedness itself, he slowly leaned in close, his hands splayed provocatively on her back scorching through her dress, his sharp cheek brushing against hers with such warmth that she helplessly closed her eyes. And he whispered, sealing their pact by a magic older than both of them combined:

"_The wager is set." _

"But, for the love of the gods above and below, why did it have to be _cooking?!_"

Thrown back into the present, the Queen of the Land of the Remembered could only stare at the arrangement of pots, pans, and foodstuffs before her with a certain sort of fatalistic resignation. She was fairly certain that making a cabinet, growing a flower, even pushing a boulder uphill would have been an easier task than cooking. Cooking was an art form. Cooking required no small amount of talent, talent which she highly doubted she possessed in a satisfactory capacity, especially stripped so of her magic.

But slowly, resolutely, she donned her oven mitts and prepared for battle. The mortals aboveworld were depending on her.

"Anyway," she said, ignoring the frail waver in her voice and doing her best to smile tremulously. "Empanadas. Simple. Of course. Empanadas aren't so difficult. I love empanadas."

* * *

><p>"I. Hate. Empanadas."<p>

La Muerte stood panting, like the queen of a war-torn Aztec army, surrounded by the remains of what had transpired in the kitchen.

A skillet crusted with a thick layer of charred chorizo and burnt onions smoldered pitifully atop the little stove, filling the room with a thick, tinny smell. A faint grey smoke hung in the air like a haze, as though someone had dropped a bomb in the place and the dust had yet to settle. Dishes littered every available surface like discarded helmets, some upside-down, some rightside-up, but all violently used, arguably abused, and turned very interesting colors.

A good section of the counter was missing, its edges black and reduced to cinders from where some oil had escaped from the frying pan and managed to catch fire. Even as she had been frantically smothering the flames with a towel, one small corner of La Muerte's mind had already begun to invent ways to explain to the Land of the Remembered just how the palace had spontaneously combusted.

But, as she observed the horror around her, she still couldn't help a slightly maniacal grin of triumph. She had done it.

A plate of perfectly crisp, flaky, golden empanadas sat before her, steaming happily, unaware of the indescribable chaos that had birthed them.

La Muerte ripped off her gloves and her apron. She knew she looked like a mess; she could feel flour in her hair and egg on her face, her eyes were watery from the onions and her cheeks were flushed from the oven. The smell of frying oil clung to her skin and clothes. Not to mention the disaster area that was the kitchen. She should clean. But she liked the atmosphere that the mess lent her, some sort of No-Man's-Land from which she'd emerged, dauntless, victorious, bearing her empanadas through the firestorm. She was unstoppable.

Immensely satisfied, she called into the ether:

"Oh, _Balbyyy…_"

He appeared with a flash and the thick, molten smell of tar, which mixed surprisingly well with the odor of burnt meat and oil in the kitchen. Insufferably smug and assured of victory, Xibalba nonchalantly straightened his glove, standing in the middle of the kitchen and grinning a sharp-toothed grin. "Well, that only took a few hours. Surrendering to my wager already, _mi amor_? I can't blame you, I know how difficult going without magic can be…"

It was then that he finally took in the sight around him. His eyes widened in shock. He blinked once, twice, and stared a moment longer before seeming to accept the fact that he had _not _stumbled into some bizarre sort of dream wherein the kitchen had been transformed into a warzone. "La Muerte! What…What in the underworld _happened?!_"

She smirked, carelessly throwing her apron and gloves into the sink where they landed in the murky water with a gentle _plosh_.

"I cooked, Xibalba. Without magic. With nothing but my own hands and a pan or two."

"Or twenty-three." But despite his characteristic snarkiness, the Lord of the Land of the Forgotten was utterly at a loss for words. He stared at the chaos around him with a mixture of horror and what might have vaguely been awe apparent in his verdant features. "Is the counter _smoking?" _

"But I win!" she crowed, snatching the plate from the table and fairly bouncing up to him, thrusting it under his nose (or, at least, where his nose should have been). His pupils crossed comically as they focused on the empanadas. "Feast your eyes, _mi corazón_, I completed your challenge. That means I win the wager! And I believe you remember the stakes…?"

He narrowed his eyes. For the briefest of moments, his crimson skulls darted back and forth from the empanadas to her eyes, his mind racing wildly as he tried to think up an excuse to somehow renege the wager, twist it to his favor. La Muerte waited patiently, still smiling. She would let him try. She would be as graceful a winner as she could be and allow him one last valiant attempt at victory.

Finally, he thought of an idea. She watched it happen on his face. One minute he was frowning, his eyes red streaks against the green, and the next he was staring right at her, the empty sockets of his skull pupils boring holes in her forehead. He smirked. "Now, wait a moment, my dear. Cooking wasn't the _entire _bet, now was it?"

She froze. Her mouth twitched. She could feel the golden smolder in her eyes threatening to burst into full-on flames. "_What?" _

He was gloating now, grinning. He was backing her into a corner, just her and her plate of empanadas which had suddenly seemed to have lost some of their crispiness, their flakiness, their golden-brown luster.

"Oh, no, La Muerte," Xibalba smiled condescendingly. "Not only did you have to cook. What you cooked had to be edible, of course."

"_Edible?"_

"Why, yes! Isn't that the very definition of cooking? Making something that can be eaten?" He leered.

La Muerte's heart stopped cold in her chest. Edible. Edible was the bane of her existence. She could cook, certainly, she had just proved that to herself and her husband. She could mix things together in a bowl, she could assemble those things into something else, and she could put that something else into an oven and take it out again when the clock announced. But whether that something else was _edible? _That was an entirely different question. She swallowed.

Smelling the blood in the water, Xibalba smirked. He leaned forward and delicately plucked one of the little empanadas from the plate La Muerte still held in front of her like some feeble sort of weapon. She flinched.

Her husband looked positively gleeful. He sniffed the pastry experimentally and pinched it lightly between his long, clawed fingers. "Moment of truth, _mi amor?" _

To her credit, she only trembled once before regaining control, squaring her shoulders, and giving him a proud, defiant eye. She smiled confidently despite the anxiety she was feeling inside. "_Bon appetít," _she said.

And without further ado, Xibalba bit into the empanada. The pastry gave way with a delicious crunch, steam poured from the half still in his glove, and inside La Muerte could see the melting cheese coating the savory ground chorizo she had managed to rescue from the skillet. It smelled wonderful. Hope swelled in her chest. _Could it be…? _

She waited with baited breath while Xibalba chewed, his smug smile slowly morphing into an utterly baffled and slightly irritated frown. The small spark of confidence inside La Muerte began to dim. She bit her lip.

"And…?" she asked, hesitatingly. She suddenly found herself so emotionally invested in these empanadas that all thoughts of their wager had momentarily vanished from her mind.

Her husband took another small bite from a corner of the pastry, chewing thoughtfully and, with a grudging sigh, confirming his first suspicions.

"These are the best empanadas I've ever eaten."

_¡OLÉ! _Inside, La Muerte was dancing the most energetic salsa of her afterlife. She was practically bouncing off the walls. She grinned in pure ecstasy, but quickly bit her lip and contained her excitement by rocking exactly twice on the balls of her feet. Winning gracefully. It was her trademark to win gracefully.

And_,_ she couldn't help but think, doing her best to hide a mischievous grin, she might as well reward her husband with a small consolation prize. A token of her esteem and appreciation.

Xibalba popped the last of the empanada into his mouth and granted her a wry, surrendering smile as he chewed. He already knew he had lost. At any other time, she might have made a little quip about how foolish he'd been to even think of challenging her in the first place. But instead, La Muerte held her husband's gaze, returning the smile with one of her own, and placed the remaining empanadas on the table. She nimbly closed the distance between them, deftly sliding her long white arms around his glowing neck, and he froze, his eyes wide as saucers. She grinned.

"Never have I seen a husband more disappointed to eat his wife's mouthwatering empanadas," she said idly, walking two fingers up his armored chest to twirl teasingly in his snowy mustache. She looked into his eyes with a pretend pout that transformed easily into a knowing smile when she noted how the green flames on his shoulders sputtered like helpless sparklers. He swallowed his remaining mouthful of half-chewed empanada in what sounded like a very painful gulp, the red skulls of his eyes not leaving hers for a moment. Her smile turned into a full-fledged grin.

"Remind me, _mi amor,_" she prompted, sliding one of her hands down his chest while the other busied itself tracing patterns on the small bones in the back of his neck. He jumped at her touch, shivering, his fists clenching sporadically at his sides, his jaw taut. "What, exactly, were the stakes of our little wager?"

His eyes were closed tight under her ministrations, and, feeling bold, she took the opportunity to lean closer and press a light, gentle kiss to the point where his skull joined the rest of him. He gasped in surprise, his black wings springing to attention in silent delight, and finally he came to life. His hands flew over her back, grasping at her shoulder blades, her waist, occasionally venturing lower.

"S-Stakes…I-I can't remember," he managed hoarsely, and La Muerte couldn't help smiling against his skin, a smile that widened when she felt him tremble in response.

"Of course you remember. If _you _won," she sighed, trailing her lips from the corner of his jaw to the base of his neck, "you would get…?"

He struggled to respond in comprehensible syllables. He was melting into her hands. "A year of m-meddling with the mortals."

Not quite a complete sentence, but an admirable accomplishment nonetheless for one in his position. Beneath La Muerte's hand on his steel armor, Xibalba's ancient heart was beating fit to burst inside him. A heart that, as he had told her time and time again, was irreversibly hers. She smiled. "And if _I _won?"

This he was much more eager to answer, since what remained of his addled mind was already gleefully sprinting at full speed in that general direction. "Oh, anything you want, _mi amor_," he whispered, pulling her closer. He was glowing bright green under her fingers, his candles blazing torches on his shoulders. _"Anything_ you want."

Here, she pulled away, smiling a smile that only widened the more she examined the veritable puddle that she had made of the King of the Land of the Forgotten. He gazed back at her dazedly, smiling a lazy, goofy, joyous smile that never failed to warm her heart and make that familiar sticky, bubbly, lava-like feeling rise in her chest. She was suddenly aware of how very little separated his skin from hers. Just a piece of armor. Just the thin fabric of her dress. Both layers that suddenly seemed like the most grievous of sins against the gods above and below.

And yet…

Grinning with sheer mischief, she leaned closer, sliding her hands up his long, smooth neck to cup either side of his face, the tips of her fingers ghosting across his angular cheekbones. Xibalba's eyes were low, the crimson skulls helplessly fixated on her lips, and for a moment, La Muerte had half a mind to give into them. To kiss him, soundly and thoroughly, to kiss him until his knees gave and they both fell to the floor, to kiss him until he said her name, her _true _name, her ancient name, there in her disaster of a kitchen, surrounded by burnt chorizo and dirty dishes and the one plate of perfect empanadas on the counter.

She traced his bottom lip with her thumb, and when his mouth parted with a heady gasp under her touch she couldn't resist dipping a little more inside, feeling the glowing green magic that made up his very body scorch the tip of her finger.

"_Anything, mi corazón?" _she asked, leaning close enough to feel the air from his lungs sink into hers. Their bottom lips brushed. He shook. His hands buried themselves in her hair.

"_Anything, mi amor,_" he affirmed. She smiled, and his eyes closed as he leaned forward, preparing to give her what he assumed she'd ask for, a kiss, one, wonderful, timeless, ageless kiss…

But then she stopped him with a finger, the same finger that had heretofore been coyly playing with his bottom lip. The finger that presently slid to the corner of his mouth to remove the little bit of green avocado sauce that had managed to escape being consumed with the empanada. She wiped it off deftly and leaned away, remaining within the circle of his arms but out of kissing range. His eyes popped open.

She smirked and, her eyes never leaving his for a moment, she slowly licked the sauce from her finger. Xibalba's jaw dropped open, and he made a noise like a parrot being trodden on. La Muerte merely smiled condescendingly, tipped her head to the side, and finally uttered her wager-winning, non-magical-cooking, champion-empanada request:

"You wouldn't mind doing the dishes, would you?"

* * *

><p>AN: _It's always the food-themed ones that turn out okay, isn't it? Hope everyone enjoys their Thanksgiving Holidays! I know I will (pecanpiepecanpiepecanpie!). _


	4. Real Life

A/N: _I don't tumbl. I am not a tumblr-er. But goshdarnit if Gravepainters doesn't make me change my mind. Dedicated to MissEmmaLights who inadvertently plagued me with such a rabid plot bunny that this happened. My everlasting gratitude to Senor del Toro the Great and Powerful, Jorge Gutierrez the Mighty, and their armada of incomparably-talented artists including the fantastic Ron Perlman and Kate de Castillo, without whom this movie would never have happened. Soundtrack: When I Dream At Night – Marc Anthony._

* * *

><p><strong>Real Life<strong>

He woke in a cold sweat for the third time that week, mid-gasp, his sheets soaked and tangled like used towels around his skeletal limbs. For a moment all he could do was stare, bewildered, at his midnight-colored canopy, feeling the last fleeting sparks of warmth and ecstasy scamper away down his fingertips.

Then he dug his palms into his eyes and howled.

The third time that week, the sixth time that month, ever-increasing in frequency and intensity, and for the love of all things Aboveworld and Below, he couldn't understand _why_. Why was this happening to him now? What had changed? And, most importantly, how was he ever going to fix it?

He hadn't slept a true, deep, uninterrupted sleep in over a month now, that sleep to which he had grown so blissfully accustomed since before time began, and his nerves were starting to fray. He snapped at the souls populating his Underworld viciously and often, a thoroughly unsatisfying activity as most of them either cowered away in fear or simply evaporated before his very eyes. He couldn't focus on his reading, he couldn't focus on _anything, _and even torturing the mortals above had begun to lose its appeal. When—drowsy and driven half-mad by lack of sleep—he had nearly smashed every precious artifact in his library to pieces, simply for the sake of feeling them shatter in his fingers, he finally admitted he had a problem.

Then had begun the great quest to fix said problem. He had consulted scrolls upon scrolls, tried remedies upon remedies, had even counted sheep out of sheer desperation and had made it to 4376 before surrendering and staring, bleary-eyed, at the stalactites on his ceiling.

This was one such night.

Frustrated beyond belief, Xibalba threw the sheets away from his body, tumbling in a tangled heap to the floor as he extricated himself, wings and feathers stuck up in haphazard directions. Tonight was the night. He had had enough of this. He knew from whence all his troubles were stemming, he had slept perfectly soundly until _she _had moved in upstairs, and this was a problem he was going to rectify.

Only pausing long enough to don a long-sleeved black silk shirt, he vanished in a choking cloud of tar and zipped his way through his high bedroom window, shooting over the ashen canyons and crevices below where lost souls were wandering purposeless through their afterlives. He cornered sharply and deftly, dodging the jagged rocks that shot tooth-like up from the Underworld's floor, and before long he had come to the very border of his lands; a grey, impassible wall of a cliff loomed before him like a stalwart guardian.

But Xibalba didn't hesitate; without losing even a fraction of speed, he dove, angling neatly for a little, unremarkable nook toward the bottom of the cliff, just out of reach from the snowy ground but easily accessible for a winged god. He fit snugly through and found himself in the long, narrow passageway which shimmered at the end with warm, golden light and that led in only one direction: up.

The black ball of tar made short work of the corridor, shooting upward like a bullet and leaving the pale grey chill of the Forgotten Lands behind.

So incensed was he by the lively music, the smell of baking churros, and the general sense of merriment _everywhere _that by the time he burst through the front doors of her palace he was seething. The Afterlife wasn't supposed to be like this. The Afterlife wasn't supposed to be cheerful. He growled audibly at the thought.

The little _calaca _standing guard at the entrance, dressed resplendently in immaculately polished armor, made a valiant attempt to stall the dark god, but he was casually kicked aside as though he were no more than a stray dog. With a clattering noise like falling sticks, he burst into bones which rolled to all corners of the foyer, and even as Xibalba stalked his way up the stairs, his skull continued to stubbornly object from where it had landed in a pot full of marigolds.

His objections were deftly ignored. Wings extended and mighty, the Lord of the Underworld cut an imposing, black figure against the cheery vermilion colors of the palace. His vivid green eyes with their black skull pupils were practically flaming, and the candles on his pauldrons blazed like torches. A product of one too many sleepless nights and the dreams they had contained, his unmitigated anger was a force to be reckoned with. No one messed with Xibalba and lived. The rest of the pantheon of gods and goddesses had learned that long ago, and it was only high time that _La Muerte, _as she called herself, did as well.

When he came to the enormous, wooden doors carved with golden marigolds and smiling skulls, he knew he had found the right place. Mid-step, he slammed his purple two-headed snake staff against the scarlet carpet, and in a burst of green magic the enormous doors flew open wide. He strode through without hesitation, roaring insults and accusations at the top of his voice, his teeth sharp and pointed and his voice lethally deep.

"I must admit, it has been many a long year since _anyone _has caused me as much pain and anguish as you have, La Muerte, but I'm afraid your time is up, so now is your chance, _your one chance, _to save yourself and this infernal land from utter destruction. Come clean! Just tell me what spell it was you used, what potion you slipped me at that banquet those two months ago, and I promise you that no harm will come to you, your land, or your subjects. Even though they should rightfully be _my _subjects. But I suppose I can let bygones be bygones _for the moment _if you simply name the spe—"

It wasn't until he fully took in the scene that he realized quite what a situation he had found himself in. He was standing in a mahogany sitting room with a high ceiling, a golden chandelier hovering lazily above and casting everything in a gentle, dusky light. At one end of the room was an impressively sized grey stone fireplace, roaring with flames, and at the other end was a balcony framed by tall French doors. Every inch of the floor was carpeted with red, oil paintings lined the walls, and vases of yellow and orange marigolds filled the room with their musky scent. But none of these things were quite what had gained his attention so swiftly and completely.

Indeed, what had suddenly so arrested the god was presently rising gracefully and calmly from one of the plush, scarlet armchairs to the left of the fireplace, a curious—but remarkably fearless—sort of surprise written on her face and a book clasped in her hand. The firelight scintillated in her sugar skin, casting multicolored reflections against the walls that rose and fell hypnotically as she breathed. Atop the table to the left of the chair was a steaming mug of what smelled like chamomile tea.

He stood, rooted to the spot, even as her blazing, ember-like eyes found his and held them, and he suddenly felt as though those eyes could read his thoughts, his very emotions. His knees buckled and he clutched his staff for support, all traces of insults dying on his tongue. He couldn't move. He could barely breathe.

And that's when he realized another thing. Xibalba's eyes widened.

She was barely dressed.

One long, sheer red nightgown flowed around her to the floor, resting on her curves and pooling at her feet. She wasn't wearing her sombrero, and her hair was not tied at the base of her neck, but flowing like a waterfall of licorice about her face.

She was glorious.

His wings, which had fallen limp the moment he'd entered her chambers, promptly popped out again with a very loud _flap_.

She merely stared at him. "My king?"

Her words shocked him back into reality more effectively than a bucket of ice water. Clearing his throat and battling the blush he could feel rising gleefully to his cheeks, Xibalba instantly straightened and smoothed his wings back into position, taking the moment to assay a proper course of action.

A gentleman would have turned around and allowed her, _prompted_ her to don anything, something, a robe, at least, a napkin, to make them both more comfortable. But he was no gentleman. And besides, he refused to be flustered by this woman, this creature who had invaded not only his lands but his very dreams.

Dreams that resembled this scene a little too closely, in all honesty. His heart was suddenly pounding. He gulped.

"A-As I was, ah, saying." Coughing, Xibalba straightened still further, and finally clasped his hands behind his back, meeting her innocent stare with a calm, cool one of his own. "La Muerte, I demand to know what you have done to my ability to sleep peacefully through the night."

She blinked, staring at him blankly. He fumed. Ah, so _this _was how it was going to be? Very well, he could play her little game.

"Oh, come now," he smirked. "You surely didn't think I wouldn't notice? My dear lady, I am the god of manipulation and trickery, at least have the decency to admit what you've done."

She was a marvelous actress. If Xibalba didn't know better, he would have believed she was utterly befuddled. She glanced about the room, tapping her book with one long white finger, before finally meeting his gaze once more, saying slowly, "What, exactly, is it that I am being accused of, my lord?"

The outer traces of amusement were quickly beginning to wear off. He scowled darkly, one hand strangling his staff, the other clenching and unclenching behind his back.

"Out with it, La Muerte. What spell did you use? What charm? What incantation? I know we didn't exactly get off on the right foot when we met again all those months ago, but if I had known what I had said would elicit such a violent response from you—"

Exasperated, La Muerte threw her book into the armchair. "Xibalba, I'm afraid I'm very confused. What have I or have I not done to so offend you that you feel the need to barge in here at this hour of the night—"

He sputtered to defend himself. "I wouldn't have had to _barge _in here if you hadn't pulled this little stunt in the first place, and I would be oh, so happy to leave if only you would just tell—"

"Tell you what, Xibalba? I have nothing to say to you, I have done nothing to you, and I'm afraid if you persist in this outrageous interrogation, I will be forced to—"

"_I can't sleep!" _

She froze, mouth agape, staring at him in utter shock as the shout ripped itself from his throat unbidden. Frozen similarly at his sudden confession, Xibalba looked like a statue; his only movement was the infinitesimal twitching of one, baggy eyelid. But he barreled onwards, unstoppable, beyond furious. Had he veins, they would have been popping at his temple.

"Whatever you did to me, I can't sleep. Every night. Every time I _try _to sleep I can't, my mind is everywhere, all at once, with thoughts of…"

He paused, and she opened her mouth as though to speak. But he wouldn't let her. He forged on ahead.

"And the _dreams. _When I finally do manage to sleep despite myself, I dream such…such _vivid _dreams about color, and music, and light, and," he took in a mighty breath, vainly attempting to stop the word before it came out. But come out it did, nevertheless. "And _you! _I dream of _you_."

She stared at him, hands limp at her side as though she had forgotten they were there at all, and he struggled to beat back the stubborn blush rising to his cheeks.

"So. Whatever you did, just," he stammered, "_undo _it. Please. I cannot go on like this, I won't endure it. Or, if you won't undo it, tell _me _what to do so that _I _can undo it. The spell. The incantation, the potion, whatever you used, just tell me. Please."

She said nothing. He was beginning to wonder if he had shocked her into speechlessness by his confession.

"At least," he said, meekly, "Would you tell the mariachi band outside to play a little softer?"

Finally, it seemed her stunned brain managed to fully process his words and all that they implied, and in answer her bewildered expression melted away into a glorious smile that lit her fiery eyes like the Sun and made Xibalba's stomach perform several complex feats of gymnastics in rapid succession. Without a word, she turned away, gathered her book, and glided toward the high set of doors that must have led into her bedroom, clearly announcing the conversation was over.

The Lord of the Underworld was flabbergasted. Nobody walked away from him. Ever. "La Muerte—"

"I wish I could help you, Xibalba, but dreams are not one of my specialties." He didn't need to see her face to know she was positively beaming. He could hear it in her voice. "Now, if you'll excuse me," she continued, "I'm going to change."

And even as she spoke she slipped one, white shoulder out of her nightgown to glisten in the light like it was studded with diamonds. Xibalba's throat went dry and his heart, which had only just managed to return to normal rhythm, stopped beating altogether.

La Muerte cast him a coy eye over her shoulder. "Unless you'd like to watch?"

He transformed into his tar-ball without so much as another word, zipping back to the safety of the Underworld and pretending he hadn't noticed her knowing smirk. He lay in bed for the rest of the night, fell asleep only once, and woke himself dreaming of white-sugar skin and red nightgowns.

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><p>AN: _To my anonymous reviewers, I wish you had accounts so I could thank you all personally for your encouragement; specifically Impressed, thank you so much! And I promise an update in the near future will definitely feature the Candle Maker…_


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